Defense targets Fawell's motives

The strategy of former Gov. George Ryan's defense team to unravel the case against him began to emerge Wednesday as his attorney struck at the heart of the government's case and the motives of its star witness.

Under cross-examination, Scott Fawell, Ryan's closest former aide, portrayed Ryan as an officeholder who focused on big-picture policy issues, delegating day-to-day operations to Fawell and largely ignoring politics in favor of doing the right thing.

Fawell spoke of political realities, how politics affects every governmental decision, how Ryan, like virtually every other politician, did favors for friends and campaign supporters, and how lobbyists are commonplace in Springfield.

Fawell said that as secretary of state, Ryan played little, if any, role in awarding hundreds of contracts and leases, instead relying on professionals to vet the deals.

Ryan's lead lawyer, Dan Webb, also continued to pound away at the enormous pressures Fawell feels to cooperate with the government in a bid to spare fiance Alexandra "Andrea" Coutretsis from prison.

The testimony came in stark contrast to the government's picture of Ryan as a man who sold his office out of greed, doling out a slew of state contracts and leases to friends who rewarded Ryan and his family with gifts, vacations and money.

Ryan is on trial with Lawrence Warner, a close friend and lobbyist who prosecutors alleged pocketed about $3 million in state contracts and leases through Ryan's intervention.

Emotional testimony

For a second consecutive day, Fawell broke down on the witness stand, prompting U.S. District Judge Rebecca Pallmeyer to call for a recess to allow him to regain his composure.

Fawell was overcome with emotion as he was asked about a letter he wrote from prison to a judge who is to sentence Coutretsis for perjury and fraud convictions.

"If there was anything I could do to make this all go away, I would do it," Fawell wrote in the letter.

Tensions among the lawyers in the case rose Wednesday as arguments outside the jury's presence grew heated and personal, taking up more than two hours of debate. In the morning, prosecutors accused Webb of impugning their integrity the day before.

During cross-examination Tuesday, Webb appeared to confirm, before the jury, Fawell's assertion that government witnesses had lied in Fawell's trial in 2003. By the afternoon prosecutors again went on the attack, charging that Webb had gone too far in questioning Fawell about a 12-week, round-trip journey last year from his prison in South Dakota to Chicago for a brief court appearance.

Prosecutors were upset at the suggestion to the jury that they may have had something to do with the ordeal to extract Fawell's cooperation. Webb hinted he had just received some information that disputed the government's position, but he declined to go public with it since he hadn't yet confirmed it.

That drew a quick retort from Assistant U.S. Atty. Zachary Fardon. "Mr. Webb, without a good-faith basis, has the gall to stand here and insinuate we have done something [improper] without a shred of evidence," he said. "I hope the court shares some of our outrage."

Twice, over Webb's vociferous objection, Pallmeyer read instructions to jurors that there was no evidence of impropriety on the part of prosecutors.

Webb spent much of the morning questioning Fawell about a timeline intended to show how prosecutors ratcheted up pressure on Fawell until he agreed to cooperate to try to keep Coutretsis out of prison.

As part of that chronology, Fawell testified in sometimes stark terms about the horrible conditions he endured in several prisons during the 12-week trip to and from Chicago. Until then, Fawell had been incarcerated in the relative comfort of a minimum-security prison camp in Yankton, S.D.

In Terre Haute, Ind., Fawell said he figured he would be placed in a nearby minimum-security camp, but instead was put for a week in the "hole," an isolation cell, in the maximum-security prison that houses some of the country's most dangerous criminals. From the cell, he could look out a tiny window at the death chambers, he said.

Fawell said that at the time, he believed the trip was "part of the game" and a "foot on the throat" by federal authorities to get him to cooperate against Ryan.

Fawell admitted that cooperation brought benefits. He was given direct flights from prison to Chicago to meet with prosecutors, and authorities intervened with prison officials in Yankton to lift a ban on visits from Coutretsis after her guilty plea.

Webb also questioned Fawell about his dramatic turnabout in his courtroom demeanor from his first day on the stand, when he came off as cocky and brash, to his more professional, serious tone in his second day.

Change of heart explained

Fawell said he had the change of heart after he consulted with Coutretsis, his brother and attorney and "saw the beating I took in the press." He also said he didn't want to risk giving anyone "an excuse to double-cross me" and renege on the deal that Coutretsis might get probation.

Fawell testified that while Ryan readily helped his friends and political supporters, there was never a hint that he took money to influence his decisions as secretary of state.

Fawell also denied that Warner, a close friend of his as well, had ever confided to him that he was "taking care" of Ryan.

Another key government witness, Donald Udstuen, a former close Ryan adviser, is expected to testify later in the trial that Warner claimed to be sharing payoffs from contractors with Ryan.

Hundreds of contracts and leases needed Ryan's approval in his eight years as secretary of state, Fawell said, but under the office's procedures, department heads and legal staff reviewed and signed off on the deals.